UC Presidents

ABOUT

Ursinus is a respected liberal arts campus, featuring an egalitarian core that’s showcased through curriculum and student attitudes. At its foundation, Ursinus was notoriously religious and all male. Under the service of dedicated presidents, the campus began to shift quickly over time into the respected liberal space it’s today. Presidents are memorable figures in history, usually evoking change and progress during their term. Therefore, our group Memorable UC Presidents plans to conduct a comprehensive history of the presidents from Ursinus’s foundation to present day. There are presently 17 Ursinus presidents. For linguistic purposes, we’re featuring only 5 presidents in our project. In a biographical style, we plan to detail the lives and accomplishments of each selected president during their administrations at Ursinus. Our main objective is to present a full representation of Ursinus through a study of the president’s impacts in shaping our campus into a liberal space.

We will be presenting on John Bomberger, the founder and first president, as well as Leslie Omwake, Richard Richter, and John Strassburger. For each president, we will be focusing on different themes such as physical changes on campus, gender policies, and curriculum changes. We hope that our project will help both students and faculty understand how the Ursinus campus they live on today was shaped by these influential presidents.

Credits

By Kayla Weil, Matthew Sherman, and Chris Barthold, We would like to thank Carolyn Weigel, Andy Prock, Christine Iannicelli, Dr. Kara McShane, and Dr. Susanna Throop for their help throughout the duration of this project